Quotes

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.”
― Charles Dickens

“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
― Charles Dickens

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before–more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
― Charles Dickens

“We need never be ashamed of our tears.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”
― Charles Dickens

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.”
― Charles Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”
― Charles Dickens

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.”
― Charles Dickens

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
― Charles Dickens

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“You are fettered,” said Scrooge, trembling. “Tell me why?”
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Ask no questions, and you’ll be told no lies.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There is a wisdom of the head, and… there is a wisdom of the heart.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“You are in every line I have ever read.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
― Charles Dickens

“Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.”
― Charles Dickens

“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you–ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn–the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.”
― Charles Dickens

“I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I am what you designed me to be.I am your blade. You cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man.”
― Charles Dickens

“Before I go,” he said, and paused — “I may kiss her?”

It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, “A life you love.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”
― Charles Dickens

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection .”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“A multitude of people and yet solitude.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.”
― Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I’ll tell you,” said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, “what real love it. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter – as I did!”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disninterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but don’t tell me.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“And I am bored to death with it. Bored to death with this place, bored to death with my life, bored to death with myself.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“My heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope, in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“They are Man’s and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since-on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected.”
― Charles Dickens, Works of Charles Dickens

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
― Charles Dickens

“Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,’ returned the nephew. ‘Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Life is made of so many partings welded together”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“All through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire- a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It’s so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The suspense: the fearful, acute suspense: of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to be doing something to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them!”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; – the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out…”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Trifles make the sum of life. ”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay.”
― Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

“Never,” said my aunt, “be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Bah,” said Scrooge, “Humbug.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Please, sir, I want some more.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people.”
― Charles Dickens

“And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done– done, see you!– under that sky there, every day.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:
Ever been kicked?
Might have been.
Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The sun,–the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man–burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“We forge the chains we wear in life.”
― Charles Dickens

“I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“When I speak of home, I speak of the place where in default of a better–those I love are gathered together; and if that place where a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together.”
― Charles Dickens

“Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer,” said Mrs. Maylie; “I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.”
― Charles Dickens

“Remember!–It is Christianity to do good always–even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbours as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace.”
― Charles Dickens

“Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“every idiot who goes about with a ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”
― Charles Dickens

“Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!”
― Charles Dickens

“Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world.”
― Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

“I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
― Charles Dickens

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“God bless us, every one!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one story to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“There were two classes of charitable people: one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“Mr. Cruncher… always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it. ”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here? Said louisa as she touched her heart.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.”
(Last words, according to Dickens’s obituary in The Times.)”
― Charles Dickens, Five Novels: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations

“Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“A very little key will open a very heavy door.”
― Charles Dickens, Hunted Down

“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.

“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks.”
― Charles Dickens

“REMEMBER HOW STRONG WE ARE IN OUR HAPPINESS, AND HOW WEAK HE IS IN IS MISERY!”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.”
― Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

“It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one’s self in going by.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It is required of every man,” the ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“If they would rather die, . . . they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“He would make a lovely corpse.”
― Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit

“One should never be ashamed to cry. Tears are rain on the dust of earth.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.”
― Charles Dickens

“I loved you madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises and Hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, I loved you madly.”
― Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood

“And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that [Christmas] has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is–as the light called human life is–at its coming and its going.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“He was consious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares, long, long, forgotten.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“You fear the world too much,’ she answered gently. ‘All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“It was a long and gloomy night that gathered on me, haunted by the ghosts of many hopes, of many dear remembrances, many errors, many unavailing sorrows and regrets.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“If Husain (as) had fought to quench his worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”
― Charles Dickens

“You touch some of the reasons for my going, not for my staying away.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy with her, but always miserable.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Her contempt for me was so strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It is no small thing, when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. ”
― Charles Dickens

“A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.”
― Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over? Because, if it is to spite her, I should think – but you know best – that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think – but you know best – she was not worth gaining over.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“But, in this separation I associate you only with the good and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you have done far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us; and if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost a matter of impossibilty to separate the two. Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon, incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced, and materially influenced, by the mere silent presence of some external object: which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness. ”
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

“if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“A word in earnest is as good as a speech.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“Marley was dead, to begin with … This must be distintly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!…”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“. . . in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
tags: brooding, diseased, mind, perverse, perverted, reverse, seclusion, solitary 38 likes Like
“Come in, — come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol